One week after instituting same sex unions, Chile’s Socialist government proposes legalizing abortion

SANTIAGO, Chile, February 2, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- On Saturday, Chile's Socialist president, Michelle Bachelet sent to the Chilean congress a law to legalize the killing of preborn human beings through abortion.

The new law would allow the killing of the preborn if there is a present or future risk to the life of the mother, as well as when the child is disabled or when the child was conceived in rape. The law also contains a conscience clause that actually would require a doctor to commit an abortion even against his conscience if no one else is available and there is an emergency.

Bachelet, a pediatrician by training, had made the legalization of the abortion-inducing drug known as the morning after pill one of the hallmarks of her first presidential term. After two years of litigation, the legislation was stopped by the Chilean Supreme Court, which ruled it unconstitutional. The drug was found to be an abortifacient and therefore in violation of Article 19-1 of the Constitution, which states that "the law protects the life of those about to be born."

This clear constitutional ruling has not stopped President Bachelet, who is a well-known radical feminist and an international advocate of abortion. After failing to win reelection in 2010, Bachelet was appointed to be the first head of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women.

With her return to power last year, one of Bachelet's campaign promises is to legalize abortion as a way to reinforce women's autonomy. Bachelet's campaign promises also included homosexual unions and eliminating from the law all "references to oaths, books, or religious symbols." Polls show that except for within the hard left, most Chileans do not wish to legalize abortion.

In a public act from the presidential palace known as "La Moneda," President Bachelet made the claim that "the facts show that the absolute prohibition of all forms of interruption of pregnancy have not prevented nor prevent the practice of abortion in conditions which threaten the life and health of women."

The information presented by Bachelet is soundly contradicted by the facts that have been published by the Chilean based MELISA Institute. In peer-reviewed studies that meticulously tracked 50 years of maternal mortality rates in Chile, researchers found that legal abortion was not a factor in improving maternal health.

Chile, which had become one of the first countries in Latin America to legalize abortion in 1931, succeeded in completely abolishing legal abortion in 1989 under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Because Chile made abortion illegal in the recent past, the epidemiological data can show exactly what the effect upon maternal health has been as a result of making abortion illegal. The facts conclusively show that in Chile, like in Ireland (another nation that until recently banned abortion completely), very low maternal mortality rates and zero legal abortion are perfectly compatible.

The Catholic Church has been quick to criticize Bachelet's proposed law, as Archbishop Fernando Chomali of the archdiocese of Concepcion published an editorial on behalf of the Chilean episcopal conference stating in no uncertain terms that this law "would leave the weakest among us absolutely unprotected." The archbishop declared that the legalization of abortion is "unacceptable" in a society that wishes to be respectful of basic human rights.

If President Bachelet succeeds in legalizing abortion, Chile would be joining with the radical leftist governments of Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba, which have all legalized the killing of preborn children.